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Rocca sentenced to 12 years

U.S. 1 accident killed one woman, maimed another on March 12, 2010

Daniel Rocca, left, looks to his family while appearing with his defense attorneys, Larry Turner, middle, and Patrick Canan, site before St. Johns Circuit Judge Wendy W. Berger and waits to be sentenced for DUI manslaughter on Friday afternoon.

Daniel Rocca appears before St. Johns Circuit Judge Wendy W. Berger to be sentenced for DUI manslaughter on Friday.

One of the speakers at Friday's sentencing hearing told the others, "I think I cried more in the last 512 days than it rained outside."

Seven additional speakers added to that volume before St. Johns Circuit Judge Wendy W. Berger sentenced Daniel Doyle Rocca to 12 years in prison for being drunk and causing a traffic accident that killed one woman and maimed another.

In earlier court proceedings, Assistant State Attorney Chris France introduced evidence and reports that Rocca's blood alcohol level was .212 at noon on March 12, 2010, when he caused an accident on U.S. 1 near the airport that killed Donalyn Frank, 54, and left Gail Martin Marston, 66 at the time, near death.

The accident

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Rocca caused the accident by nudging Frank's Lexus as he tried to pass her on the right at a high rate of speed.

The impact forced her car over a concrete median and into oncoming traffic.

Frank was then T-boned by Marston's blue-green pickup truck.

Frank was pronounced dead at the scene.

An assessor for the Florida Department of Children and Families, Frank also had her own clinical social work practice in St. Augustine Beach.

Marston, a retired Duval County school board employee, was in critical condition when she was brought into Shands Hospital with a shattered heel and ankle, a broken femur and hip joint, and a collapsed lung.

Her right leg was later amputated at the knee.

Rocca's Pontiac Vibe rolled over into a ditch. Neither he nor his passenger, Sofia Fuentes, 23, of Plantation, was seriously hurt.

Plea to charges

Rocca pleaded May 8 to DUI/causing death and DUI/causing serious bodily injury.

He knew at that time he would be sentenced to 12 years in prison. The only question was how much probation, if any, he would serve after the sentence was over.

France deferred to the judge's judgment on probation during Friday's hearing.

Patrick Canan, one of Rocca's two attorneys, argued against it, saying probation is for "the bad guy ... the burglar you're afraid of when they get out."

"But the day before all this happened, this was a normal law-abiding kid," Canan added. "And he did the unthinkable."

'All-American'

Canan's co-counsel, Larry Gibbs Turner of Gainesville, agreed.

"We're saying 12 years in prison is punishment indeed," Turner told Berger. "When it is over, let him pick up the pieces of his life and be the productive person he was on the path to being."

The "previously all-American kid" wasn't trying to get drunk the day of the accident, Turner said.

"In fact, (he was) trying to get an energy drink that would prevent him from getting drunk," he added.

His passenger went into a convenience store, said Turner, and returned to the car with a "Four Loko" and a "Joose" - "energy drinks" that contain caffeine and alcohol.

There is so much alcohol in the drinks, Turner added, that, within 30 to 45 minutes, Rocca drank the equivalent of a six-pack.

Probation

Berger decided to give Rocca two years of probation after his prison sentence is over.

She wants him to complete 50 hours of community service each of those years, preferably in a school, telling students his story.

The defendant paused to collect himself several times as he repeatedly apologized to the friends and families of his victims, as well as his own family.

"I was well aware there was alcohol in that drink," he said. "I don't want anyone to get the idea I'm not taking responsibility for this."

"To the families ... I cannot begin to imagine the pain I caused you guys," he said. There is nothing I can do or say that can undo what I have done. I'm really sorry."

"Me, too," replied Marston, who was seated just a few feet behind him.

Marston also responded when the defendant's father, Jim Rocca, said, "There is nothing I can say or do for you that would adequately make amends."

"God bless you. Really," she said.

"All I can say," Jim Rocca continued, "is very simply and very humbly I am so very sorry for what happened to you."

'Door has opened'

The defendant's mother, Terry Rocca, also apologized to both families, and then addressed her son:

"This is something you can't change. This is a situation you can't change. But the door has opened for you. You have to go through it alone. Some good has to come of this ... in memory and honor of these people."

Frank's fiancé, Joe Smyth, said, after 512 days of crying, "I forgive you for what you did.

"If Donalyn was here today ... she would forgive you."

Frank's mother, Joy De Mar, said she had no intention of being so forgiving.

"My entire world has changed since March 12," she told the judge. "Four months after my daughter was killed, my husband died of a broken heart. We put a lot of love in our family. ... We were so proud of her. She always had a goal in mind. ...

"Four months after my husband died, my other daughter died. I am now alone in this world, except for my granddaughter. It's very, very difficult. I feel the court should not be lenient."

Marston encouraged Rocca to teach his newborn son not to drink and drive.

"I have no problems with you," she said. "None. But I do believe you need to go to jail.

Donalyn Frank's daughter, Haley Frank, argued against leniency, saying, "He gets to say goodbye to his family. And I didn't. ... When she died, I died. ...

"He needs to understand what it's like to feel this loneliness. This true, true loneliness and despair.

"It won't ever be the same until he's alone like I am. But I would never wish that on anybody."